Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel peace prize - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/29/edward-snowden-nominated-nobel-peace-prize <comment><USER4> Some may find the list of people who can nominate someone for the Nobel peace prize interesting. From their website:

Members of national assemblies and governments of states; Members of international courts; University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes; Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; Board members of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee

Most of those are fairly small groups; but "Members of national assemblies and governments of states" is a pretty big chunk of people, and "professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology" is a simply enormous group of people.

As a result, nominations are __very __meaningless; any third rate history or sociology prof at some podunk community college can nominate someone if they have a mind to, and all sorts of people get nominated, often as a lark or to prove a point. I believe Bush was nominated repeatedly, for example. (Well...nominations are secret, but I know of people who have the ability to nominate, and claimed to have done so, and I don 't see why they'd bother to lie, so...)

So yes, Snowden was nominated (well, unless these politicians are lying). Honestly, he was probably nominated dozens of times. This isn't news. Also, a couple of left-wing Norwegian politicians like Snowden. Also not news. :) The only real news here is if he wins...

<comment><USER5> > I believe Bush was nominated repeatedly.

Ha even bizzaring, Adolf Hitler was once nominated. [1]

[1] [http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/facts/peace/](http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/facts/peace/)

<comment><USER6> Hitler was TIME magazine man of year, and for a decent while in America Fascism was mildly popular (circa 1930's). Its strange looking back on a that time (Post Holocaust and WW2). American Newspapers applauded the works of fascists claiming, "They got the trains to run on time."

<comment><USER7> Being Man of the Year isn't necessarily an honor. From Wikipedia:

      Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual
      issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features
      and profiles a person, group, idea or object that "for
      better or for worse...has done the most to influence the
      events of the year."

<comment><USER8> 2001 title should have gone to OBL then.

<comment><USER9> "Though we spent hours debating the pros and cons of naming Osama bin Laden, it ultimately became easy to dismiss him," said managing editor Jim Kelly. "He is not a larger-than-life figure with broad historical sweep ... he is smaller than life, a garden-variety terrorist whose evil plan succeeded beyond his highest hopes."

They chose Giuliani instead.

[http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/12/23/giuliani.time/](http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/12/23/giuliani.time/)

<comment><USER10> "Smaller than life?" What does that mean? For worse, those attacks have had lasting implications everywhere. Sounds like they realised they'd be slammed really hard if they stuck to accuracy so they backed down with some handy-wavy nonsense about being brave.

If their bravery had caused a proper response, similar to how Norway responded to that mass-shooting, then it'd be worthwhile to note. But despite their bravery, that "garden-variety terrorist" has succeeded in scaring people into allowing their government to expand powers.

And the dismissal that it doesn't matter because he didn't think it'd work out - that's just idiotic. Do we disqualify scientists from the other Nobel prizes because "they really didn't think this experiment would discover anything"?

<comment><USER11> So, in your opinion, it was an idiotic injustice that Osama bin Laden was robbed of being Time's Man of the Year.

<comment><USER10> I don't think it's an "injustice" and I don't think "robbed" is the right word either. I'm unaware of anyone I know that really cares what some magazine writes.

I'm just pointing out their terrible use of rhetoric and lack of logic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> While I'm fond of any form of flipping the NSA-backing US administration the bird, the Nobel Peace prize has not enough reputation to matter in this context.

Al Gore got it for raising awareness of climate change. Obama got that for not being Bush. Even if Snowden gets it, it doesn't really matter.

<comment><USER13> In all honesty, Obama got it for being the first black president - it was a HUGE deal, remember that.

<comment><USER14> I assume that there are a lot of black presidents e.g. in Africa, I don't think a lot of them got that award.

<comment><USER13> Don't be unnecessarily obtuse - of course I meant the first black US president.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Everyone has already forgotten Pfc. Manning rotting away for 35 years.

I saw a "free Snowden" sign the other day which I thought was asinine.

<comment><USER16> > Everyone has already forgotten Pfc. Manning rotting away for 35 years.

Please represent the facts accurately. Manning is eligible for release in 7-8 years. I'm willing to make a long bet ([http://longbets.org](http://longbets.org)) for $300.00 that Manning does not serve 35 years, or "rot away for 35 years" as you put it. Are you up for it?

<comment><USER17> I hate that this nitpicking has become the standard response whenever someone is facing a prison sentence. It utterly belittles the hardship that people like Pfc. Manning actually face, even if it is for 7-8 years in the end.

Additionally, the parole or probation that she faces even after release are still punishment. It's not as though the troubles are suddenly over.

Treating the issue in this way makes it sound like the judge announced the 35 year sentence, slammed a gavel, then looked over to Manning with a wink and a whimsical smile. That's not what happened. 35 years was the sentence, and that is what you should expect to hear in relation to the case, even if it can be reduced with work on the part of the defendant.

<comment><USER18> 35 years vs. 7-8 years is not exactly nitpicking.

What they get out in, is just as relevant as what they were sentenced to. Otherwise, why do we get so mad when a murderer is sentenced to 20 years and out in 2?

<comment><USER17> I agree that it is a fairly large difference in number, but I still think that trumpeting on about it distracts from the primary discussion.

At best, this is all speculation. 7-8 years is the time before Chelsea Manning becomes _eligible_ for parole. Whether or not she is actually released will depend on a number of factors, including the political climate at the time. We'll only really find out around 2021.

Finally, and this is something I touched on in my first comment, even 7 years in a federal prison is nothing to sneeze at. A non-trivial amount of time spent on federal probation after release isn't exactly going to be a cakewalk, either. And this is all on top of the time already spent in the military justice system, including almost a year of solitary confinement. Basically, I'm just asking that we don't downplay what must be an awful experience simply because our justice system has wiggle room.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He certainly deserves it more than Obama (let's not mention Kissinger).

<comment><USER20> Obama's prize was more of a credit for good deeds in the future. Jagland himself (Nobel committee chairman) partly confirmed that. Sadly, it didn't work out. Rather backfired.

<comment><USER21> except that obama kept the million dollar prize. since he didnt return it id call that stealing.

<comment><USER22> "Kept" is a rather strange way of saying "donated to charity".

<comment><USER21> Well he shouldn't even dispose of the money the way he wants if he did not deserve it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Let's have a look at how the Norwegian Nobel Committee works, that is, the people in charge of selecting the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Currently, the committee is made up of five members, who have to represent the political parties of the Norwegian Parliament. Here is the list of these members :

Mr Jagland (for 4 years) Mrs Kullmann Five (10 years) Mrs Ytterhorn (13 years) Mrs Reiss-Andersen (2 years) Mr Stalsett (1 year)

Jagland has been a member of the Nobel Committee since 2009. The same year, he was elected Secretary General of the Council of Europe. Note that Norway is part of the Council of Europe, but not of the European Union. Jagland is in favor of the EU, although Norwegian people have voted against joining the EU two times.

All of the other members are politicians from national parties. According to Wikipedia, Mrs Kullmann Five is also member of the Board of Directors of Statoil, an oil company which is the largest company in Norway. Mrs Reiss- Andersen is a lawyer, and she has written two novels. Mr Stalsett is the Protestant bishop in Oslo.

As we can see, the committee is not a group of international law experts, famous scientists or peace activists. The truth is, it seems the five members of the committee do not have the right profile to be responsible for one of the most important international awards in the world.

In fact, an additional person helps the committee to make decisions. Geir Lundestad is the director of the Nobel Institute and has been the "secretary" of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 1990. He was a researcher in charge of international relations at Harvard for three years, and a researcher at the Woodrow Wilson Center, which is the eleventh biggest think tank in the world (according to the Go-To think tank ranking) with famous members like Hillary Clinton and Arne Duncan. Then, in 1990, Geir Lundestad came back to Norway and became the new secretary of the Nobel Committee, and went on for 23 years.

The bottom line is that Geir Lundestad is the real decision-maker. This guy calls the shots, and he will of course not choose Edward Snowden as the next Nobel Peace Prize.

</comment><comment><USER24> First of all, a huge number of people are nominated each year for the Nobel Peace Prize. So the fact that Snowden was nominated doesn't really surprise me; I'm guessing that many activists from around the world are nominated.

The list of who can nominate is somewhat restricted -- but given that any member of any parliament, or any social-science professor at any university, can nominate someone, that doesn't strike me as a very high barrier to entry.

The bigger question, in my mind, is whether Snowden contributed to world peace. Yes, he clearly unveiled all sorts of schemes that the NSA had. It's a good thing for democracy that he did such things; it's clear that the US government was doing things that it claimed not to be doing, and that US and foreign citizens alike were rather upset to hear.

So yes, I'm personally glad to hear that these things were unveiled.

However, did this really contribute to world peace? Is the world a less violent place as a result? You could make the argument that it actually _is_ more dangerous in the world, because the US is less able to spy on people. I'm not sure if that's the case, but it's not a totally crazy argument.

<comment><USER25> Well, I guess since even Barack Obama, a president who spreads hatred by not abolishing torture, not ending wars, supporting assassinations, etc. won the Nobel Peace Prize a lot of things are counted.

Since the US obviously fights many secret wars and considers everyone but UK; Canada and Australia their enemy unveiling the fact that there are secret wars fought way more intensely than we knew before it is the only possible first step to end it.

It at least makes more sense to me than destroying a part of (mostly broken or expired) nuclear weapons. I don't think that the presence or absence of nuclear weapon will ever be a reason for war, maybe a pretense, but that's all.

<comment><USER24> I actually think that Obama's generally an OK president. (Not that I agree with many of his policies, including those having to do with Guantanamo and drones, mind you.)

But I still think it was kind of weird for him to get the Nobel Peace Prize. At the very least, it strikes me as way premature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wow. The ability of people to only see what they want to see is amazing.

So Obama deserved a Nobel Peace prize for running a successful electoral campaign, but Edward Snowden doesn't deserve one for making one of the largest exposés of compromises of individual freedom in the history of the world.

Bravo, Americans.

</comment><comment><USER27> 2009 - <USER2>

2014 - <USER3>

That would certainly be something ;)

<comment><USER28> 2015: Putin

It's like they are giving the Emmys to the actors of some weird worldwide soap opera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Maybe we can get someone to nominate the NSA for the peace prize. Would make for fun commentary.

<comment><USER6> Well theoretically all this global spying and bombing targets from remote controlled airplanes piloted half a world away should be making a safer more peaceful world right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The Norwegian Nobel Committee is composed of five members appointed by the Storting (Norwegian Parliament). The Committee's composition reflects the relative strengths of the political parties in the Storting, and is assisted by specially appointed expert advisers.

</comment><comment><USER31> He did open the eyes for many, he clearly was 'sent' here to do just that. Who else?

</comment><comment> chao- Wouldn't be a bad consolation for being passed over as the TIME person of the year.

</comment><comment><USER32> Well it certainly would say something about the value of the NPP if one winner was forced into refugee status in one of the worst human rights violating countries because he couldnt get a fair trial from another NPP winner.

</comment><comment><USER33> I partly think the peace is like getting a bucket of piss since the time obama got it.

<comment><USER34> Obama? Try Arafat or Kissinger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Hear, hear. I would love to see him get the Nobel. I think history will look kindly at Mr. Snowden, while the NSA's activities will be vilified -- assuming we are allowed to learn about those activities and those of us speaking out (or just texting each other about it) aren't fired, denied tenure, or otherwise removed from public view in the Brave New World of total surveillance.

</comment><comment><USER36> Wouldn't it be ironical if he wins the Nobel just a few years after Obama?

</comment><comment><USER37> Attending ceremony will be tricky.

<comment><USER38> Norway and Russia share a border. So it may be easier than at first glance.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway%E2%80%93Russia_border](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway%E2%80%93Russia_border)

<comment><USER39> I think the comment was intending to highlight the fact that multiple international organisations are trying to arrest Snowden and his appearance at the awards would put him in jeopardy, not that travel logistics might be an issue.

<comment><USER40> Which international organizations are trying to arrest Snowden?

(Only States can do it..)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> If Obama can receive it, then I don't see why not Snowden.

</comment><comment><USER42> I was disappointed he didn't win in 2013. If I remember my reading of the rules correctly the members of the Nobel Committee could still have nominated at the point when it was clear what he was revealing and how. Seems like the obvious choice by far for last year.

As a relatively minor side benefit, Snowden winning the Peace Prize would be an elegant rebuke to the rulers in the Sixth Eye of Five Eyes - Nobel's birth country of Sweden. I'd like to see that.

There are many people that would be eminently eligible to share a Nobel Peace Prize with this sort of motivation though. Only two slots left for the sharing... Bill Binney and Tom Drake? John Kiriakou? Who are the other strong contenders?

</comment><comment><USER43> Snowden hasn't officially been nominated. From the article:

"The five-member [Nobel] panel will not confirm who has been nominated but those who submit nominations sometimes make them public."

<comment><USER44> You know how the nomination process works right? It won't be officially confirmed until 50 years has passed.

See [http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/](http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> It would be critisim agains the committee itself, giving it to someone pointing out previous laureates as anti-peaceloving.

</comment><comment><USER46> How interesting. If he wins, he will be obtaining the same award as Obama. That just seems so ironic. You win the same award as the guy who has lied about what the NSA is doing, and what he is willing to do about it.

</comment><comment><USER47> He will not get it. Since the real kings of the world will prevent it.

They will provide, that more likely a terrorist or mass-murder will get it. Or even somebody that orders unethical kills of people by drones.

</comment><comment><USER48> Barack and him will have a good chat at the next nobel winner bbq

<comment><USER49> Ah yes, the BBQ is always so delicious at The Annual Nobel Winner Chicken Dinner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Here, Here! In the end, more knowledge will lead to more peace. It sounds hokey, but clandestine infinite historical data storage can only end in disaster.

</comment><comment><USER51> Given that Snowden has undermined Pax Americana, I find this nomination surprising.

</comment><comment><USER52> When did the Nobel peace prize become the "most-influential" prize.

<comment><USER53> I assume it must have been before it lost the status when they gave it to a guy who had yet to do anything, other than give some captivating speeches... so... several minutes sometime?

<comment><USER54> > a guy who had yet to do anything

Thus making him infinitely more peaceful than every other major politician of the era :P

(If by "major politician" you mean "American president", and by "era" you mean "2001-2010". Which actually is what most people mean, AFAICT...)

<comment><USER53> Let's scale it by how long he had been in power by that time...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> It's a shame Obama devalued the prize by accepting a it.

</comment><comment><USER56> That is a great way to make Snowdens life a little safer.

</comment><comment><USER57> Nobel peace prize =! TIME person of the year

</comment><comment><USER58> What does the peace prize even mean?

</comment><comment><USER59> What kind of message would it send to the world if the US gouvernement was still trying to put in jail a Nobel peace prize ?

</comment><comment><USER60> Anybody can get nominated. Being seriously considered is more important.</comment>


Thank HN: You helped me get a new job - <AUTHOR> I remember like it was yesterday: I applied to a job overseas through a job platform and didn't get hired. People from the platform contacted me telling me one of the possible reasons was that I didn't have any code on GitHub. After that I started uploading all my code as open source projects and began to search places to tell people about it.
Soon I learned about Hackernews and made a post that got 1 vote. I then decided to contact HN to ask how can I get more traction to my projects and they told me about the Show HN, a tag design to share small and even unfinished projects. Soon I was posting every idea I ever had made into a project. After InvaderZ - a space invaders clone that uses genetic algorithm (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21577659) - people started liking my projects and I started to gain some attention. That was very important cause I was being approached by some companies.
I don't do projects to gather attention, I do cause I have fun doing them. I already had a lot of things done when I decided to upload them to GitHub. Well, in one of those times when my post was in top 10, a cool company from São Paulo saw me and called me for an interview. They liked my project so much they offer me a job.
I'm living in São Paulo now, it's a huge city full of things to do and places to visit. It's been really cool so far and I have a huge appreciation for  Hackernews and the good people that work here. They provide a cool platform where people can share relevant news. They provide tools for people to start their own startup. They share job openings. They share companies that are hiring. It's a neat place for programmers, hackers and tech enthusiasts in general. I wrote this cause you never know when your story will inspire others and maybe there's someone on the struggle right now looking for a job. This was my experience. HN help me a lot and I think it might help you too. Thank you all and have a wonderful year. <comment><USER2> There is undeniably a positive energy around HN. It has enriched my life in many ways and opened my mind to many different fields, niche communities and many historical facts.

The world is truly filled with good people.

I'm not surprised and very glad to read about this story.

<comment><USER3> Sure HN crowd is far better than rest of platforms but we can't undermine OPs efforts as well. Dude has like 70 Show HNs on his profile!

<comment><USER4> yeap it's all his doing :) HN just helped make that work visible which isn't that easy (even within the HN community)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you for posting!

I'm grateful to hear your story. These days, it seems all too easy to see only the bad sides of the internet.

It feels like news breaks every day about yet another way that the advertising industrial complex robs us of agency, another insensitive corporate gaffe goes uncorrected, or a CEO ousted for their malignant influence on a company lands on their feet with no repercussions — sometimes at the same company.

I grew attached to my computer at a young age — It felt like a chance to make real all of the possibilities that felt so out of reach in the rest of my life. It's been a really hard road to face the current state of the net, like one of my childhood dreams has turned sour.

So, when I see a story like yours, I'm grateful to be reminded of the ways that the promise of a more connected world is not yet lost, we can still do some good. I hope you enjoy your new job and São Paolo and that this is the beginning of an exciting next chapter!

<comment><AUTHOR> well, you'll be glad to know that I'm working on a project that helps children eat healthier food and exercise. I'm using machine learning to provide a custom experience for parents and children alike (not all children have access to the same type of food - strawberries, for example, are expensive and hard to find on some parts of Brazil so the app must not indicate that kind of food to people from that area)

<comment><USER6> This sounds like a great project. I've found you on LinkedIn and Github but is there somewhere where I can follow this project?

<comment><AUTHOR> look for NesPLAY on the app store. But I just joined the project, haven't done much yet

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What a positive post.

For what it's worth -- this industry and community, unlike any other is one in which I've most seen people willing to give world-class advice, thoughts and help for free. Maybe it's the communal roots of open source culture, not sure... but it's rare and amazing. So I am also thankful.

<comment><USER8> It's an aspect to HN that I've found to be very consistent over the decade or so I've been reading comments here. People are overwhelmingly willing to offer up their contact info, give advice (often expert advice), help, beta test, and so on. I think it's a critical part of the foundation that holds HN together after all this time, helping to keep it inviting to new users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have noticed that the people who contact you for positions via HN also connect with you on a personal level and treat you like an actual human.

Although nothing has worked out for me yet, this is a welcome change from the run of the mill recruiters. You just know that you will be a cog in the wheel if you are hired in those companies.

I guess that the majority of people here want to work on something that adds value to the lives of others.

</comment><comment><USER10> HN helped me too in a much less explicit way. I spent a lot of time on here during the ~9mo period of learning tech after dropping out of grad school. I count the exposure to technical conversations: links to diverse areas of the field, raw _takes_ on technologies, references and arguments, discussion on how tech fit into businesses - to be as valuable as the skills I was learning towards getting employeed and before that just towards feeling like I had any idea what I was doing. Now almost 3.5yrs in!

</comment><comment><USER11> Well done.

You showed yourself that you were a worthy programmer when you decided to code a lot of cool projects for fun.

You showed the world once you put them online.

I find the #1 measurable determinant of great programmers is enough true joy from programming that they create many sub-projects just for fun. I'm so glad you found a venue to show it.

I hope you enjoy your new role and an amazing career to come. You earned them.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very nice story, glad you've found some success. One thing I try to be mindful of, admittedly not as well as I'd like, is paying it forward. Remember the feeling, the struggle, the journey, the people who've helped you along the way, and try to be there for those in the future who will fill your past shoes. Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER13> Congrats on the new job in São Paulo! :)

I'd echo other commentators that it's heartening to hear these stories of real connection found via the web.

I had a similar experience some years ago; a blog post I wrote about a side project connected me the SF-based startup I still work for. I couldn't have predicted how that post, churned up by a fortuitous google ranking, would impact my life. I'd be remiss to not also credit the generosity of the blogger who shared it as a guest post.

If we're going to rediscover what the web should have been, then celebrating stories like yours seems a good place to start.

There are teams formed, love found, and minds changed for good -- all via the web. Perhaps it's in part by studying these connection stories that we'll find our way to a healthier, more human web for everyone.

Another great example of the positive web: [https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/97588463553510195...](https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/975884635535101952?lang=en)

</comment><comment><USER14> General question - Do companies look at candidate's github? I have never had any company even care to ask what I have on github. Isn't it all about whiteboard coding interview? If I don't do well on coding interview, it doesn't matter what I have on github. At least that's been my experience. I am curious to know others' experience in this regard.

<comment><USER15> I do, but only if you seemed like you mucked up part of the interview. I'll go check Github, spend 2-3 minutes googling the source code to see if you copied/pasted or if it's yours.

I've passed a few candidates who bombed technical interview via phone because Github showed they know what they're doing & just had an off day.

Granted, I'm sure most do not do that but technical recruiting is so expensive so spending 5-10 mins on a candidate I already spent 30 mins with is a drop in the bucket if it gets me even 1-2 more hires who would've slipped through the cracks.

<comment><USER16> I have a similar practice. One of the best engineers I ever hired bombed the tech interview, and I went poking in his github. Found a project that seemed pretty neat and reached out the candidate with an email like:

"Hey, I realized we didn't get a chance the other day to go over something you wrote independent of the hiring pressure. Would you mind a call where we talk about $project?"

Since that candidate was much more comfortable talking about their own project, the interview went great. I learned a little rust, and we got a good engineer :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats! I remember seeing one of your projects, finding it cool, and checking your profile and site.

HN is indeed a good platform for a kind of disperse networking. I got approached by a friend whose boss saw my posts/comments on HN, somehow talked about it to my friend, who recognized my username (which is both memorable for Brazilians and my actual nickname) and asked him to recruit me.

And I don't even ever got a _hit_ post.

<comment><AUTHOR> soneca is a funny nickname, uhauhauha

<comment><USER18> Perhaps I'm missing something, why is it funny? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> "soneca" it's a Portuguese word that means "sleep for a short time". Is something people usually do after lunch.

<comment><USER17> The literal translation is _" nap"_; but nickname origin is actually because it is how we call one of the Snow White's seven dwarves, Sleepy.

I used to sleep a lot during classes on high school. It's kind of a classic nickname

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, I remember soneca from the 7 dwarfs but I failed to mention it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As another Brazilian that owes a lot of my career development to news, discussions and people I've got in contact from HN for the past 7 years or so I'd like to give you big congrats on landing the new job.

Given your English and programming skills level be sure that in no time you'll be able to apply for jobs overseas if that is what you are looking for, I did the move out of Brazil some years ago so shoot me a message if you are unsure about it or have questions :)

Best of luck and have a blast with the new job.

</comment><comment><USER20> Thanks to HN "who is hiring" thread earlier this month I was able to find a 100% remote contract. With it in hand I expressed to my job I wanted to quit and they countered with letting me work 100% remotely (all I really wanted)! Thank you HN!

</comment><comment><USER21> Congrats on the job! It's always awesome to hear how a community helps one of its members!

Edit: looking at your submissions, you've been a machine, good work. I'm moderately curious what hiring platform came back with feedback for you, it seems in retrospect to have been helpful :)

<comment><AUTHOR> honeypot, they were all over Reddit some time ago

edit: I think the lady who was dealing with my profile felt bad cause I had zero offers, lol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is an awesome post. Thank you for sharing your story with the HN community.

I was browsing your GitHub and played around a little with IsoCity [0]. I really like it! Small projects like these are great and you can learn so much from them. You said it very well:

> I don't do projects to gather attention, I do cause I have fun doing them.

Thanks again for sharing and all the best :)

[0] - [https://github.com/victorqribeiro/isocity](https://github.com/victorqribeiro/isocity)

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, I was surprised with all the attention that project got. Made sure to link to the artist portfolio so people would give him some love too

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "People from the platform contacted me telling me one of the possible reasons was that I didn't have any code on GitHub."

this is an absolutely disgusting trend

"So you say you want to work in our paper mill and you don't even make your own toilet paper to use at home? Get out, you casual."

<comment><USER24> The problem isn't that you don't make your own toilet paper. It's that an oddly high percentage of people you're competing against for the most desirable jobs _do_ make their own toilet paper.

By contrast, you appear less appealing as a result. If all you want to do is show up to the mill and get paid, stop applying at all the most prestigious mills. There's thousands of more humble mills that could use your help outside the valley--and they don't mind if you buy your toilet paper at the store.

<comment><USER23> Right I guess I forgot that the same position at a fancy company is somehow worth more because the company name is part of the FAANG acronym.

You can't pretend that there aren't plenty of non "prestigious" companies that do this. Frankly the fact that any company would judge you based on "oh, you don't spend your unpaid time doing work that we consider important?" is absolute bullshit, no matter the "reputation" of the company.

These jobs are just another cog in the wheel job for christ sake, stop putting companies on a pedestal just because of their name.

Furthermore, if you're applying for a "desirable" role and you don't have any previous experience and NEED to use a github profile to show yourself off, it's clear that the only thing making this role "desirable" is the name on the fuckin company building which, again, is a bullshit reason to consider a job "desirable".

Otherwise, a "desirable" role would be one that could be a senior role in a field that you already have experience in, so your actual work experience should be plenty of evidence for your worthiness for the position and you shouldn't need any outside hobby code to show that you're qualified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Same here. HN has changed my life. From getting exposure on open source projects to geting various contracts around the world. I'm incredibly grateful. Thank you Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER26> I shared a project on Show HN (at a bad time of day: 3:30pm PST on a weekday), and all I got out of it was a barrage of accounts created by spambots using breached Yahoo and Hotmail email addresses! They didn't stop for weeks, until we put in a recaptcha.

Pretty funny - I'm definitely not complaining about HN. And it's nice to hear your story!

</comment><comment><USER27> Congrats! :)

And thank you for writing this. I have used HN for more than 10 years and I've learned so much about my profession from it. Some of it is that you simply can't keep up with all the technology. But some of it is just inspirational. A lot of it is just purely educational.

Clearly it has that affect for thousands (if not millions...) in our world.

</comment><comment> jamie-vesoft Wow great story! Congrats on the new position. I didn't know about the Show HN tag. Sounds like a great opportunity for startups. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER28> > I didn't know about the Show HN tag

Not sure why but that made me laugh and think that either says a lot about how HN has changed over the years or you just don't spend much time here

<comment><USER29> I'm guessing the latter, there's two on the front page right now; there must rarely not be at least one.

<comment><USER28> Probably and that's kind of my point. Not meant as an insult or anything but just thought it was funny since it seemed like the main purpose of HN back in the day

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Congrats!!!

HN is a place I check all the time. There's so many smart people here and the conversations are often very civil and super informative.

</comment><comment><USER31> Related question: is Github (specifically) considered a must, or is it just considered a need to have code online? I primarily use Gitlab--is that seen as a kind of demerit?

<comment><USER32> No, Gitlab is not seen as inferior. I must admit though that I have been guilty of checking whether a candidate had a Github page and forgetting that they might have one elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Congratulations! Don't stop now! Stick around and provide inspiration to others coming along behind us.

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow! Congratulations! This is a great story. Best of luck with your new position. São Paulo sounds great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. São Paulo is a great city. Every food you want to try, from every nation. you can rent a eletric scooter from the street with just your phone. I'm really having fun here

<comment><USER35>
       you can rent a eletric scooter from the street with just your phone

For now, at least

<comment><USER36> And is it really the best part about a city ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Wow this is such an accomplishment and a testament to a healthy culture of encouragement. Congratulations to you and best of luck on your future endeavors!!

</comment><comment><USER38> Apart from a few niche-specific closed forums, I've had consistently high quality discussions on HN. Somehow the HN culture stops the proliferation of low-effort comments and trolling so prominent everywhere else.

<comment><USER39> I'm pretty sure the poor design does not encourage people to come there if they do not expect to find something valuable. The overall quality of shared news is really good, the comments are not imediately accessible after reading the news, people express different points of view. A lot of hacker news reader arent english native speakers, and it's hard to troll efficiently with a language you do not master.

<comment><USER40> HN design is outstanding, both on desktop and especially on mobile. There's nothing "poor" about it.

<comment><USER41> > especially on mobile

Eh, I much prefer using an app on mobile. All the buttons (up-/downvote, collapse) are too small, and a lot of space to the right is often left on the table, which makes longer comments very hard to read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Congratulations!

I've always wanted to publish interesting projects on Github, but I find it hard to get inspiration. Do you have any tips?

<comment><AUTHOR> I always liked computers even when I was a child. So when I decided to go to college for the second time to study software engineering I was very eager to understand how things work inside a computer. I remember not knowing how numbers can represent an image. So I took digital image processing. I like to get to the basics so I can try stuff later on. I also especially like to solve problems. Even if a problem is well solved by a genius of the past, I think: how would I solve this if I didn't have Google to provide me with the algorithm? Many projects came from this two things. The third thing o really like is games. So I'm always trying to come up with interesting mechanics, concepts, ways of making the computer plays against humans... I also watch a lot of good people on YouTube, read a lot of what people post here... all those things poke my curiosity one way or another and I end up writing code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Gratz

I'll echo this sentiment as someone who's been hired through a lead on "Who's hiring?"

</comment><comment><USER44> I definitely have to thank this awesome site as well. Had been stuck in a position where I didn't feel like I had a way out, due to a combination of a non-compete on myself and restrictive no-poach agreements between my (now former) employer and a majority of large tech-oriented businesses in my city. Tried everything I could to get out from under both, short of leaving town, and just couldn't find a job that fit my career goals that I was actually able to take. Early last year, I started checking the who's hiring posts monthly, on the off-chance that something would stick out and catch my attention. I was scrolling through pretty quickly one day, just looking for keywords, and blasted through like half the page, and then realized I had missed reading a comment that had some of my target words in it. Scrolled back up, saw a post from an engineering manager at a company whose product I actually use, and on a whim I just applied. Now, over half a year later, I'm happily and gainfully employed, working remote, for a company that I really enjoy working for and on a product that I can dogfood. Feels really great. Thanks for keeping this community alive, everybody. It's awesome to be a part of this.

</comment><comment><USER45> I remember going through your GitHub and LinkedIn profile in detail. It has inspired me to develop something based on genetic algorithms myself! Keep it up! You are awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> It's good to know the classic method of getting hired as an engineer still works! Congrats!!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Congrats and I hope you'll keep contributing to this HN community in the future as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I hope I do too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I deleted all my other social media accounts (except for strava and youtube), I stay here for a while. Much healthier community.

</comment><comment><USER49> as another developer from são paulo that got jobs from HN postings, cheers!

if you ever need tips, help or even someone to have a beer, feel free to contact me (keybase/email is on my profile).

</comment><comment><USER50> Congrats! If anyone is looking for opportunities in São Paulo, feel free to contact me (contact is in my profile). At CIAL Dun&Bradstreet [https://www.cialdnb.com/pt-br/](https://www.cialdnb.com/pt-br/) we're on a lookout for python and js devs.

<comment><USER51> Saving it for later

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I have favorite your post in order to remember that I have to add more of my projects to Github and shown HN

<comment><AUTHOR> I highly recommend that you do that. It's awesome when people send pull requests improving your work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> But how did you find the time to do all this stuff, didn't you have to work? are you single?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm single right now. And when I was on college I had a lot of free time, cause I was working part time. Several projects that are now on GitHub came from sketches I did while bored in class or on my free time - [http://jsfiddle.net/user/victorqribeiro](http://jsfiddle.net/user/victorqribeiro) \- I'm not young, I'm 35 now. I went back to college at 30 because I went broke (after the last company I worked for screwed me). It's kinda hard to date when you're a broke going bald 35 years old with no steady income. I'm getting back on my feet now. But as you can see, I used my free time to thinker with things like code and electronics.

<comment><USER53> It's all good I' happy for you, life is a sinus wave, there was a time that I felt that it will only get better from now on, and few years after that I was broke and screwed by the company I gave my all for

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I am also a developer from São Paulo and because of this community I just got a new remote job in a German company.

Your Show HN pots are really inspiring. They really show your enthusiasm about software development, which I think it is fundamental for mastering the craft.

</comment><comment><USER55> Congrats! Glad to hear! HN also helped get me my dream job -- this community is amazing!

</comment><comment><USER56> Thank you so much for sharing! It's the best thing I've seen so far today!!!

I live in Shanghai and yeah struggling with getting a job or I should say, a job I like, a boss I admired or a company I'm willing to support;

</comment><comment><USER57> This right here is why Software matters.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is what differentiates the comp sci & (some) engineering crowd from anyone else. If you ask anyone a question on here, everyone will jump in to help you out and it's like this in real life too. Throughout my degree I noticed how eager my fellow classmates would be to help others solve difficult questions, problems etc and generally be nice.

Compared to business or even some engineering classes it was pure cut-throat. So, it's always refreshing to see stories like this, restores my faith in humanity.

</comment><comment><USER59> Thank you for sharing your story. I am what one would call a lurker but have recently decided to start participating directly too. Your post also gives me a lot of motivation to do that.

I think one of the reasons of the positive energy in this community is because it's strict rules on trolling. If one doesn't get to see low effort replies, sarcastic comments etc, then it reduces the chances of them having a bad experience. Hence, resulting in an net positive vibe in the whole forum. Just my two cents!

<comment><USER60> Same here ... this is actually my first comment. Planning on being more active if I have something worthwhile to contribute with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Congratulations. The hacking can truly open doors it seems. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I see what your did there

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Thank you too! This reminds me that I should probably thank people more often (both in private and public). It sure does help to support and spread some positive vibes.

I read HN daily and learn so much more from discussions. Every time I meet someone who could be interested and contribute to this community I suggest them to take a look, and often people get hooked, just like I was.

So, thank you and best wishes to the mods and the whole HN community! Happy 2020!

</comment><comment><USER63> Congrats and Where were you living before?

Im here in Washington DC but might be getting a similar job opportunity(similar circumstances) in San Paolo too.

How is it there?

<comment><AUTHOR> I graduated in Rio Grande do Sul (federal universities are free in Brazil and with one test you can apply to any of them), then I went to Minas Gerais (Where I'm originally from) to write my final thesis and to take an internship. São Paulo is huge, there's an app for everything, especially for ordering food with discount. The "Ibirapuera park" is great and so is the "centro cultural", there's a lot of other things to see here but I'm kinda busy finish renting an apartment and stating my new job (today was my second day). I think you'll like here. if you need anything you can contact me. victorqribeiro on LinkedIn

<comment><USER63> Ok great, thanks and congratulations!

I'll connect with you on LinkedIn and reach out if this opportunity pans out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> That's so awesome, congratulations on your success

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Thanks for sharing your experience! One of the things that keep drawing me to HN is the fresh news and the friendly community.

</comment><comment><USER66> This is honestly so amazing to see. Congratulations, and also good work on all the Show HN posts you've made!

</comment><comment><USER67> Congrats,

Even I dont work directly in programming, its still benefit a lot for me, HN is my second search engine.

</comment><comment><USER68> Well, this is refreshing. Congrats and keep your attitude of gratitude, it will serve you well.

</comment><comment><USER69> Well done and thanks for sharing your story! I miss São Paulo a lot, the North where I grew up, and the Augusta/Paulista place where there were always interesting geeks in coffees, lots of meetups, companies, conferences. Hope you will enjoy it too!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm learning my way around here. I'm working on Lapa and renting an apartment here to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> What a wholesome story. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER71> Many many congratulations.

What kind of projects can we show at HN? I have an open source project that I made to download movie torrents using YTS API. I made it to learn react. I am really not sure if its alright to share torrent site here.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't recommend that one. Trust me, I've made a similar app two months ago but after learning that a guy from UK got sent to jail just for having links to pirate content, I took the app down and deleted the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Great story and glad to see you gained so much from this wonderful community.

</comment><comment><USER73> >People from the platform contacted me telling me one of the possible reasons was that I didn't have any code on GitHub.

Do places really require a github account with lots of code now to be considered?

<comment><USER74> A few places have thought that was a good idea even since Github became a thing. I don't think it's a terribly good strategy myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> This is awesome! Thank you for sharing your story and congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER76> Congratulations! What a good story to read first thing in the morning

</comment><comment><USER77> Congratulations!! Hope you keep making things and posting them here!

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, I have three projects that people will love. Each one of them is half done (I do the programming first, then I do the graphics/UI then write some sort of documentation and release)

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Congratulations, and have a wonderful time in Sao Paulo! You rock!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you and thank you also for the referral, I was kinda committed to this company I'm now, but maybe we can be co-workers in the future

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Congratulations, man! Your story is super positive I love it.

</comment><comment><USER80> Don't thank anyone. If you like it, you enjoy it, you can do it... The job is for you!

Also I will argue: Any company who 'requires' github code can suck my next job.

</comment><comment><USER81> And that's how you create your own lucky. Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER82> Not a full fledged and philosophical comment here, just my honestest congratulations fellow Paulista, you serve as the perfect inspiration to me!

</comment><comment><USER83> And thank you, atum47, for sharing this story! You'll encourage more people to develop and share their ideas in a virtuous cycle.

</comment><comment><USER84> Excellent job and best of luck,the platform is great but undeniably you did your best with the platform, leveraging it and finding success!

</comment><comment><USER85> This is the most awesome thing ever.

This is what inspires innovation.

</comment><comment><USER86> Well, now your story made it to TOP 1, grats :)

</comment><comment><USER87> I was a lurker, but your post has inspired me to create an account. Thank you for reminding us that people can be good.

</comment><comment><USER88> Thanks for sharing this, I'm glad that things have worked out well for you here. All the best for the future!

</comment><comment><USER89> Congratulations dude, What a great story!

</comment><comment><USER90> Thank you man! Who ever you are. Wish you all the best in life! Be sure you inspired at least one person!

</comment><comment><USER91> I'm happy things turned out well for you. Let's make the world a better place for all of us =)

</comment><comment><USER35> Congratulations! There are also several meetups here in São Paulo, which are great to grow your network!

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, the company I'm working for also is very present on meetups and workshops. soon I'll be too

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Awesome post! HN has also helped me a tremendous amount over the years. Good luck on your new job!

</comment><comment><USER93> Thanks for sharing. Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER94> Congrats! That's amazing news!

</comment><comment><USER95> Congrats! I can feel your enthusiasm. Try and keep this positivity as long as you can.

</comment><comment><USER96> Thanks for sharing and it is a really inspiring story, congrats and way to go!

</comment><comment><USER97> Thanks for sharing your story

</comment><comment><USER98> Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER99> Thanks for sharing! That's a delightful and encouraging story.

</comment><comment><USER100> Congrats on the job! Seeing your commits on git are inspiring!!

</comment><comment><USER101> Awesome, congratulations and thanks for sharing your story :)

</comment><comment><USER102> This is so wholesome!

</comment><comment><USER103> Hey mate,

Great to hear you've landed a job! I've enjoyed following a few of your projects.

But I must say your success is not surprising, as you're a Brazilian times better than your average coder! ;)

</comment><comment><USER104> Congratulations :)

</comment><comment><USER105> That's awesome, congrats on the new job!

</comment><comment><USER106> Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER107> Superb! Congrats

</comment><comment><USER108> Great post, thank you for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER109> This is a moved story.

</comment><comment><USER110> This is very cool!

</comment><comment><USER111> Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER112> Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER113> Congrats dude!

</comment><comment><USER114> I feel like we're around a "golden age" of HN and dread the day when it all starts going downhill.

<comment><USER115> To be fair, I remember people posting this same thing in 2008... 2010... 2014... etc. So far it HN seems to be able to buck the trend, likely due to its simplicity, the great moderation team, and the community. It's not without fault but it's better than most.

<comment><USER116> I think three things keep HN great.

One is the moderation team. I don't always agree with their decisions, but they are definitely on top of things and do what they think is best for the content.

Two is the comment sort algorithm. It's far superior to Reddit, which I think is far superior to any other platform. On HN, if you make a comment on a post that's a few hours old, your comment will still be seen. It will be at the top for at least a few minutes. On reddit it'll just be buried.

And third, the lack of profit motive. Every decision they make is in the name of improved content. They have no concern for driving traffic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> best site for tech enthusiastic and programmers

</comment><comment><USER118> wow! recursive auto-shill! YC paid good money to make HN valuable so now let's strip-mine!

<comment><USER119> Nah, that's unfair. It's great for both YC and HN that the HN community gets a reflection of itself like this. I suggested to Victor that he make this post. He originally emailed us to say thanks, but I told him it was all of HN he should thank, and that the community might appreciate his story.

It happens pretty often that people tell us interesting things by email. I usually urge them to post it to HN so that more than just we can enjoy it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> That's not what my experience tells me.

There is a lot of negative energy, hidden under that thing we call downvotes

They should be punishing low value content or outright trolling, but it's instead a measure of how much the comment matches the general bay are technocrat sentiment

I followed a conversation the other day about the increase of alcohol related diseases and addictions in US and one of the most voted comments was about getting sober thanks to AA

There's value in getting sober, but it's not a solution to the problem presented, which is mostly a social problem, that the private health care in US won't solve no matter how much money you pour at it

And yet those criticising the US social system and the absence of a public welfare were downvoted.

So in the end nobody learns from their mistakes and those willing to collaborate bringing a different POV are discouraged to do so again.

It doesn't sound positive to me.

<comment><USER119> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22051358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22051358).

By the way, only about 10% of the HN community is in the Bay Area and that segment is by no means all "technocrat". People's impressions of the community's politics are mostly the afterimage of what they saw that they disliked, because those are the things we tend to notice and that make the strongest impact. People who dislike the opposite things have the opposite afterimage. In reality, the community is divided and produces lots of examples either way.

<comment><USER121> > By the way, only about 10% of the HN community is in the Bay Area and that > segment is by no means all "technocrat"

The original comment said _" a measure of how much the comment matches the general bay are technocrat sentiment"_, it doesn't say that everyone on HN is from bay area or a technocrat.

From my understanding it means that if people believe _" it's what people in Bay Are would think"_ it gets more traction.

There's a trend towards conformity that is helped by the style of moderation.

Not saying is bad, just saying that there's a consistent pattern.

Which is exactly what happened.

<comment><USER119> I'd say the opposite is more prevalent. People assume that HN is dominated by Bay Area thinking—which is to say, whatever caricature they regard as Bay Area thinking, since there's no single such thing—and then post what they imagine to be their contrarian view against it. Usually they do so angrily or sarcastically, since people get defensive when they think they're going against a dominant view.

It's been many years since HN comments have been Bay Area-centric, if they ever were. HN now has far more users who identify against it than with it, at least among commenters. That's why I tell people that only 10% of the community is based there; it usually comes as a surprise.

<comment><USER121> > which is to say, whatever caricature they regard as Bay Area thinking, since > there's no single such thing

Yes.

And it is exactly what I said

> if people _ __believe ___ "it's what people in Bay Are would think"

That kind of "tension towards conformity" is still very present, at least it seems to me, even though they are conforming to an idealized and/or caricatural way of life.

And my understanding of the original comment is that it was mocking the "bay area billionaire wannabes".

> Usually they do so angrily or sarcastically, since people get defensive when > they think they're going against a dominant view.

This wasn't the case though.

My point is that my last comment costed me some downvotes and a minus on the karma, but it wasn't angry or sarcastic or against a dominant view, it was only an analysis on someone else's comment.

No big deal, probably someone disagreed with it and downvoted the comment, but that's not what a downvote should be used for - AFAIK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER122> This is not reddit or livejournal.

<comment><USER119> It's true that meta posts are like crack and it's important not to overdo them, but I had a feeling this story might resonate with the community particularly well, and suggested to Victor that he post it. So if you want to blame someone it'll have to be me. More here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22053084](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22053084).

This thread exceeded expectations, and reminds me of a thought I've often had: could we find some way to help HN users meet and support each other in the real world, to make more real connections? Hiring is an important special case of that, but not the whole story. It's also cool when people find friends, kindred spirits, collaborators, investors, and so on. Lots of this goes on and always has, but I wonder if we could catalyze more of it, without getting too formal or nannyistic. I think a lot of creative potential could be activated if more HN users connected with each other. Also, more interesting feedback loops happen when the loop passes between online and offline (as in the OP's case), so it would make HN better too.

<comment><USER123> HN doesn't really create barriers to taking it offline, does it? If one wants to be contacted, one can leave info in their profile. I was emailed this way more than once!

Meanwhile, if IRL meetings become a big part of the community, could this create fragmented/exclusive feeling in threads, especially considering there are folks who have reasons to participate anonymously or are unable to attend for other reasons?

I somehow feel like connections made here may be limited, but in some ways more pure and to the point, lacking the distracting visuals and inconveniences of flesh so to speak.

<comment><USER119> I do worry about the possible downside of any new mechanism like that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A New Clue to Solve the CIA's Mysterious Kryptos Sculpture - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/11/second-kryptos-clue/ <comment><USER2> I am inclined to believe that the 4th piece is written in a foreign language or otherwise multiply-encoded, or that Sanborn made a drastic error in the cryptography. The other 3 sections were solved independently in a much shorter time. For instance, the NSA was the first to crack the first three parts of the sculpture, and they did it in only 2 days. The fact that nobody has made any progress on the 4th section in well over a decade even with a known clue is hard to reconcile.

> Then "within two days of receiving the information tasking from Chief, Z," > they had solved parts one through three of the puzzle. They spent another > day on the fourth section, but very quickly "a decision was made to stop any > further work" on it. "Given the suspected cryptography, the last section is > too short to solve without diverting a great deal of effort from operational > problems," they wrote in the memo.

Elonka Dunin is the maintainer of the well-known Yahoo Kryptos group, and maintains the primary reference page.

[http://elonka.com/kryptos/](http://elonka.com/kryptos/)

Wired ran an interesting article about the NSA's original crack of the scultpure, which I have quoted from above.

[http://www.wired.com/2013/07/nsa-cracked-kryptos-before- cia/](http://www.wired.com/2013/07/nsa-cracked-kryptos-before-cia/)

<comment><USER3> Apparently a mistake exists in Part 2 of the sculpture so it's plausible that there's more. From the Wikipedia article:

> There are also a few incorrect letters in the ciphertext which Sanborn has > said were intentional, and a few letters near the beginning of the bottom > half have been displaced from their normal positions, apparently > intentionally... One of the lines of the tableau is one character too long, > which Sanborn has indicated was accidental.

It's tough to imagine how to start such a problem when you can't even rely on the ciphertext being correct.

<comment><USER4> "It's tough to imagine how to start such a problem when you can't even rely on the ciphertext being correct."

That's a common problem in the real world. A lot of ciphertext, at least historically, comes from radio signals and if your receiver doesn't get a good copy of the signal you've got what you've got.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Sanborn realized he had also made an inadvertent error, a missing "x" that > he mistakenly deleted from the end of a line in section two

I can't imagine the horror that accompanied that realization. I get anxiety when I notice a typo after an e-mail goes out. A typo into an encrypted sculpture that's so high profile must have been upsetting...

</comment><comment><USER6>
      Be sure to drink your Ovaltine

<comment><USER7> A crummy commercial? Sonofabitch.

<comment><USER8> An expression of his confidence that it won't be encrypt, as he was looking at the breakfast table for a phrase?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Personally, if I was the artist making such a sculpture, I would just use a one-time pad, use a key that's as long as the message, and burn my notes.

Then I would laugh maniacally at the brilliance of my troll for ever and ever.

<comment><USER10> Well in that case you might as well just scribble `head -c 1000 /dev/urandom | base32`.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm mostly curious as to how the sculpture got approved without anyone else knowing what it said.

<comment><USER12> >Sanborn was forced to provide Webster with the solution to the puzzle to reassure the CIA that it wasn't something that would embarrass the agency.

<comment><USER13> >However, in 2005 Sanborn revealed to WIRED that Scheidt and Webster only thought they knew the solution. In fact, he had deceived them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm betting the whole thing ultimately just reads:

"Hello, sweetie"

<comment><USER15> "Hello, world!" would be nice.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but then it wouldn't be River Song sending a message to the last surviving Time Lord now would it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-mysterious- texts.php](http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-mysterious-texts.php)

</comment><comment><USER17> Bet the message appears at noon, midsummer's day.</comment>


How a software glitch kept thousands from reaching 911 - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/20/how-a-dumb-software-glitch-kept-6600-calls-from-getting-to-911/

<comment><USER2> The actual document is available as a PDF from the FCC, here:

[http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014...](http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2014/db1017/DOC-330012A1.pdf)

I do not see the '40 million' number mentioned in that document, but there are a lot of other legal documents which may be important here.

The key problem is that these states offloaded their 911 calls to Intrado, a company which specializes in looking up the closest actual agency which can respond (called a "PSAP" in the jargon). Intrado had to engineer for two time- domain multiplexed (TDM) systems, basically one normal and one legacy. The legacy system served a CAMA[1] system of 911 PSAPs, CAMA just means that the system automatically logged every number and time.

Because it was servicing this system which had log numbers, it wrote that CAMA's information to some sort of database. (It's a little more complicated than that but basically they needed to make unique IDs as part of the CAMA's protocol.) The counter could only generate N entries. When it tried to handle more entries, some warning-level notification was raised by software, severe enough to crash the application but not severe enough to emit a warning that would alert Intrado's IT staff. All CAMA-routed destination traffic from this Intrado server was affected.

It took several hours before they figured out what was wrong, in part because some other 911 system went down at the same time for an unrelated reason and they figured wrongly that they were related. Once they realized what was going on, they rerouted to a backup server which didn't have a full log file. This second server was able to handle 911 calls while the original bug was fixed. About 6,600 calls did not make it through the system and were dropped (in the form of a busy signal?) rather than routed. They could have switched over to the backup server immediately, but (a) they missed the warnings that their software was emitting, and (b) they didn't understand that the server was the problem.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_message_accounting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_message_accounting)

</comment><comment><USER3> I am going to go put the number for the local police department in my cell phone. I can always call them directly.

<comment><USER4> You should do that anyway. Calling 911 from a mobile phone is likely to take you to a regional dispatch center, not your local police department [1].

I've called 911 twice from my mobile phone to report an accident I passed on the highway. Once nobody picked up, even after several attempts with perfect service. The second time I spoke to someone who obviously wasn't a 911 operator but assured me she'd pass my message to right people.

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/3/6414949/911-call- failures-...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/3/6414949/911-call-failures-fcc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If my personal negligence causes someone to die, I face serious legal and civil ramifications. Infrastructure providers should be similarly subject to something more than a commission investigation.

</comment><comment><USER6> 4 million seems like such an odd limit for a system. I'm not sure what number that were using to store the counter for the call limit.

<comment><USER7> Who the hell would design a system involving 911 calls with a limit that could be reached in a couple years of calls? I can't imagine how I would go about being stupid enough to not understand the nature of the requirement to not have 911 calls fail. This isn't cobol with a fixed field limit of N digits someone specified in 1964.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This software should be open sourced for peer review. It's too critical a system for a black box.

<comment><USER9> >>critical a system for a black box

Didn't open-source systems like SSL take quite some time before vulnerabilities like heartbleed surfaced as code-bugs/code-vulnerabilities?

Also to directly address the issue of critical systems and robustness, am not sure how far reaching open-sourcing might be in tending to issues.Are there projects that have made the transition for good?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which major cities are the easiest to move to with a new job? - <AUTHOR> I'd like to hear what your experiences moving to other cities for a new job are like. I'm in Chicago and have applied to several places and never got any emails or call backs from companies in Denver. I get call backs and interviews from companies based in Pacific Northwest (Portland and Seattle), Austin and Bay Area.
Someone else in Reddit said that Denver is rather insular and they rarely have companies flying in candidates from other cities as they are content filling in positions from people local to their area.
So looks like Denver is ruled out for a possible city to move to in the immediate future. A move to PNW is still open, though. So what have been some cities that are most easily to move to with relevant job experience? Also, especially if you don't know anyone in that city? <comment><USER2> Any should work, I and friends have done it many times and see little difference between them. YMMV with any particular city. Sometimes one in SF will pay for moving expenses, help set you up in corporate apartment for a few months etc, sometimes not. Sometimes a company based in the midwest or Charlotte will or won't. It depends on the candidate. It depends on the company. It depends on the current hiring climate and position.

It's up to you to decide if a place is worth it or not. Interview many places and see what your offers are. If something is a deal breaker, tell them and they will probably shell out for some moving expenses/bonus to lessen the blow of paying a premium for housing when you get there.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it depends on the size of the company rather than the city the company is located in.

I moved 800 miles to my current location, a city of 80000 in Oregon. My Employer paid to fly me out for the interview. I was also re-reimbursed for the move as well. The company is an international company with HR policies in place for moving people, there was no issue about my move. The only constraint from the actual city was the fact that vacancy rates for rentals is < 1%. Its pretty near impossible to find some where to live.

</comment><comment><USER4> I vote Portland, Boston or Swastica, Ontario

<comment><USER5> > Swastica

Unfortunate name though.

<comment><USER6> Swastika is a sacred religious symbol of Hindus, Jains and Buddhists. The only unfortunate part is that some dipshit stole it and decided to make it a symbol of hate.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika)</comment></comment></comment>


Still trust restaurant reviews? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.urbantag.com/post/6359235485/still-trust-reviews Some thoughts on why a new review ecosystem is needed, and about to develop <comment><USER3> I trust Yelp/Urbanspoon reviews the same way I trust Amazon reviews: By reading them and looking for clues that the reviewer is real and has astes and concerns similar to mine. I gloss over uncritical reviews, whether they're real or not; a review that says "everything was great but the fries" I'll put stock in.

It's possible that astroturfers could start taking that into account, but it's hard to imagine. The kind of people who stuff Yelp reviews generally have personality quirks that would prevent them from allowing any negative feedback.

<comment><USER4> I would guess this is what a lot of people do and it's certainly what keeps me from giving up entirely on Yelp/Urbanspoon. But the downside is that ranking results by average review becomes useless; you have to dig pretty deep to find the place with an average of 1.5 stars that has a couple of thoughtful reviews indicating it's somewhere you might like. (i.e. you have to get your reviews in linear rather than constant time :)

Companies like Hunch are addressing the problem from the social-networking standpoint that the author suggests (their Local app adds a Facebook friend layer on top of scraped Yelp reviews), but it seems most people are not yet dissatisfied enough with Yelp to consider getting themselves invested in yet another social networking service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Part of the point of the review model of Yelp (and Amazon, for that matter) is that you don't have to trust _a_ review. You only have to trust the consensus of all of the reviewers - which, at best, is very, very hard to spoof. When I see a place on yelp with a 4-star average on 1000 reviews, I feel very confident about going there. It's hard to get to that critical mass, but far from impossible - and you don't need someone's "real name." This is actually somewhere where Yelp is doing well, too - they give people a _persistent_ identity. You should trust reviews from someone who's written 100 reviews more than a review from someone who signed up just to review a single place - <USER2> Yelp makes that judgment easy by putting the information right in front of you. Blizzard and other strategies have demonstrated that real names aren't necessary for a good community - just persistent names.

Also, I have to laugh that the UrbanTag folks approvingly cite the complaint that existing reviews sites are "giving customers "the upper hand" in determining an establishment's reputation." Well, yes, they are. That's the point. That power has always rested in customers' hands, because that's what reputation is: what _other people_ think of you. You can work on your reputation and "manage" it and "optimize" it, but if it's not what _other people think,_ it's not reputation. Business owners neither need nor deserve control over other people's opinions - look at those asshole doctors that were linked here a while back, forcing customers to sign agreements that amounted to "we can sue you for posting a negative review of us on Yelp."

As for unreasonable customers: that's nearly as overblown as the threat of piracy, and if your business can't deal with unreasonable customers gracefully (not the same as caving and giving them what they ask for), you deserve to go out of business.

<comment><USER6> Dealing with ungraceful customers is #1 thing I look for in a business. I am not usually ungraceful. I always try to be polite and friendly with any customer service rep, etc. However, I think it says a lot about a company.

For example, a budget hosting provider that I used for a while would go off on any customer who posted a negative review of them in the comments section of a blog I frequent (LowEndBox). They turned out to be a terrible provider and even being a reasonable customer, I could not get anything from their customer support.

This is the same principle that can be used at job interviews. Take the interviewee out to lunch and see how they treat the wait staff. Quick way to separate assholes from people that will gel well with your team.

<comment><USER7> I know this is how most people feel, and I do try to pretend to be a sane, rational person who doesn't get angry when dealing with customers, and I think that helps me a lot. Flying off the handle at a customer almost never makes business sense.

But I don't think it's such a good overall heuristic for picking service providers. Personally, I'd rather deal with an employee who was good technically and bad socially than deal with someone who is the other way around. (I mean, if I could get both at a price I could afford, that'd be perfect. but that's not usually how my world works.)

If the food is good and the service is fast, sure, it'd be nice if the waiter was also friendly, but if I had to sacrifice something; price, speed of service, quality of food, or politeness of service, I'm going to pick the rude fast waiter and the good cook every time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Review sites are hard.

Yelp was wonderful when it first started because the people on it all loved restaurants enough to actually want to sign up to some random site and review them. The community was small and I was easily able to pick out people I trusted and people I didn't.

As it grew, more of the general public started reviewing things and things started to go downhill. No longer can I remember who has similar taste as I do or who to trust. There are so many reviews that it has become rather useless. Every business seems to be 3-4 stars from Michelin two star restaurants to the taco cart on the corner.

Worse, ratings change over time. Restaurants I rated as 5 stars years ago no longer qualify as 5 stars today, so even when I see someone I know, I have to look at the date of their review and discount appropriately.

Compounding things, there are all sorts of reasons why people give negative ratings from food delivery being late (which has nothing to do with your experience going to a restaurant) to having bad service because the restaurant opened the day before to not feeling like you got enough subjective value out of it.

Now, if Yelp had a collaborative filtering engine ala Netflix or only showed reviews from people who shared similar taste as I do, it might regain some of its usefulness. Maybe if they did something ala Hacker News and required constant up votes to keep the rating from falling over time? Or an OKCupid- style personality matching matrix to tell if someone is just cheaper than I am or demands a higher level of service.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't bother with 5 star or 1 star reviews. Too much emotion to be sensibly reviewed.

Three stars provide a nice balance. Things like "food was good, but service was slow." I find more valuable than a 2 paragraph review about how a waiter spilled a glass of water and only comped one entrée or a five paragraph review that can be summarized as "I love this place more than breathing."

<comment><USER10> I like to read 1-star reviews (for anything) just to get a rough idea for what a 'worst case scenario' might look like for that particular thing. If the 1-star reviews are all about entitled patrons, that's pretty encouraging, whereas a few reviews about rats or cockroaches would make me look elsewhere. To use another example, I was looking at books on Amazon yesterday, and the only one-star review for a particular jQuery book was from this guy who was mad because the book didn't explain how to put quotation marks inside another pair of quotation marks (it was NOT a Javascript book) or how to download Firebug. Whereas another book's 1-star reviews might be about how the examples don't work, core material was skipped over, etc. When I was looking for a travel mug I could throw in my purse, I nixed any option that had a 1-star review about leaks (including many which were advertised as leakproof), and ended up getting the best travel mug I've ever had. I can shake it upside down or toss it across the room and my coffee stays safely contained. I think the bad reviews of it were about how hard it was to clean and how the lid came apart too easily. (It's supposed to come apart, to make it easier to clean...)

<comment><USER11> Which mug? Tossing a full cup of coffee across a room sounds fun.

<comment><USER10> For some reason I can't find it on Amazon right now, but it's this one:

[http://www.thermos.com/product_details.aspx?ProdID=282&C...](http://www.thermos.com/product_details.aspx?ProdID=282&CatCode=BEVG&q=)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > To solve the anonymous review problem, its time to inject real identities > into recommendations.

People are usually more honest when speaking anonymously -- not the other way around. It may help with astroturfing and flaming temporarily, but competitors and trolls will always find a way around real identity online.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting point - what if your reviews are shared between your friends? Our findings are that people can be honest in a community where they know their recommendations will mostly help their friends find great places.

<comment><USER13> Take the number of your friends. Subtract the "lurker" ratio, which most studies show to be pretty high. Now subtract the ones who have never been to the place you want to see the review of. Now subtract the ones who went there but didn't review it (because do _you_ leave reviews of every single business you use? if so, where do you find the time to do anything else?). The mode of the result will be 0.

If your friends are homogeneous and outgoing, you might achieve the critical mass necessary to have more than just one review on a handful of local businesses.

On Yelp, I have many local places with 0 reviews _period_ , let alone by people I know.

Broader comment: Tying identities to reviews won't do squat. If I tell you I'm Bob Thurmond, put up a photo of an older white guy, and exercise even a modicum of identity management, who's going to be able to tell otherwise?

<comment><USER14> That, and often I need recommendations when I'm not in my usual place, like when traveling. The odds that my friends would 1) use the service and 2) review a place I'm interested in are very low.

If I want a recommendation from my coffee aficionado friend... I'll just ask him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why doesn't collaborative filtering work for popular review sites? The Netflix recommender is pretty solid. Obviously you aren't likely to have reviewed 200 restaurants in Yelp, but it still seems like it would be effective if you had 10-30.

But if I could go to Yelp and have it recommend restaurants based on my past ratings (well I have none now), that would be nice. I'd even take it a step further. I want recommendations of actual dishes.

</comment><comment><USER16> I always feel dirty when I read a topical blog post and find out that its actually just marketing material for the author's product.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm solving the same problem at <http://tattle.com>.

Our pitch is "Local business reviews and recommendations from people you trust."

For me, as a vegetarian (<http://tattle.com/#communities/vegetarian>), the problem with Yelp has always been that I don't have any good way of finding vegetarian-friendly restaurants. They are good for factual queries, but trust is a delicate issue. That's mainly because when you run a search for "vegetarian" on Yelp, you're getting back a list of places that have the word in their name or description, or occasionally a review. But actually, places are not vegetarian, people are vegetarian. So if you want to know what place to go to, you need to know who goes there. That's how we're solving the trust gap (in addition to other problems with reviews).

<comment><USER18> Have you looked at <http://vegguide.org> ?

<comment><USER17> Just did, there's also happycow. None of these sites have very much content, they clearly are very old, and tattle is not tailored specifically for vegetarians and vegans - we're just good for those types of communities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The signal-to-noise has worsened appreciably on Yelp to the point where I rarely look beyond the star rating and the number of reviews, and even then I take the star rating with a grain of salt. The folksy, storytelling style they seem to have championed makes reading through even a sampling of the top reviews unbearable. It's too bad - I think they could successfully "pivot" (sorry) into everything from location to coupons relatively easily if their community didn't suck.

That said, Yelp is already fairly well integrated with the social graph (via Connect) and one of the best use-cases for Yelp is for finding destinations away from your main locale and, presumably, your social graph. I don't think this approach will add value.

</comment><comment><USER20> I agree with most that reviews are generally prone to abuse. (Although frankly some of the Amazon non-serious reviews are just priceless, like the Cat in the Hat ones [1])

I am also surprised Facebook hasn't jumped in here, seems a really useful product would be 'facebook reviews' which linked reviews to profiles. Then 'the set of reviews you trust' could fall right out of your friends list.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Hat-Dr-Seuss/product- reviews/03948...](http://www.amazon.com/Cat-Hat-Dr-Seuss/product- reviews/039480001X/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_summary?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending)

</comment><comment><USER21> As someone who had dabbled in this "social recommendations" space, finding reviews from friends when you do not have a big enough social graph is probably the biggest difficulty. Also, it may work in a place like SF, but outside of those deeply networked places, it becomes difficult to find restaurants with reviews on Yelp, forget finding places where your friends have been to.

And remember that people are far more inclined to write reviews when they have had a negative experience, and not a positive one.

A tough task. I wish you all the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Cherian

Would love to talk further about your experiences.

Feel free to write me - firstname.lastname@example.com

Thanks! and yep - def a tough problem... ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I also find Yelp pretty useless at this point, so I've been hoping to find a site that allows me to easily see the places that my friends (or friends of friends) have been and to see their reviews of those places. Are all reviews on your site going to be public, or is there going to be an option to only show them to your friends and their friends? I'm hoping it's the latter.

<comment><USER23> Thanks for your feedback. I think you'll like what we are up to! (I work at urbantag) If you have an iPhone, contact us and we'll prioritize you in the beta (reference this HN comment).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Trust? Nobody has ever 'trusted' reviews by other people. They've used them to help make decisions, but 'trust'?

I use reviews to find the negatives of something, and then decide if that negative bothers me. Filtering out people with an axe to grind can be an art all in itself, but many people are pretty easy to spot.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, there are two types of reviewers:

1) I review every place I go.

2) I want to punish/warn people about a bad experience.

The first type is way more useful, since there is no way to tell whether one person's bad experience is typical or not.

<comment><USER26> Possibly much less common, but another type of reviewer which I fit into is "Doesn't bother to review unless a place has been consistently awesome over multiple visits, so much so that I feel they deserve my thanks".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> why is this the biggest thing we're trying to solve? can't we use these incredibly powerful algorithms to solve a real problem? there are so many restaurant recommenders out or coming soon."You have to ask yourself, are we working on the right things?"

</comment><comment><USER28> I really wish there was a professional review company that charged restaurants for the reviews and then made the information public. Zagat's model of charging for the ratings isn't helpful because the reviews are limited to their ecosystem and don't show up in the places I read reviews (seamlessweb, google, etc)

Yelp reviews are so astroturfed the ratings are useless.

<comment><USER29> Charging the reviewed for the review makes it very hard to write a negative review, especially for subjective reviews like restaurants.

This will happen without any conscious effort:

1\. Restaurants will only pay for the review if they're fairly confident it'll be good.

2\. When the reviewer comes, if the manager is able able to tell who it is, he'll make sure the reviewer gets perfect service.

3\. Even if the reviewer's identity is secret, the restaurant will know that the review is happening this week, and can (temporarily) improve quality for that week only. The restaurant knows more or less when the review will be happening because they paid for it (earliest possible date) and they know when it'll be published (because they'll want to know before paying).

4\. When the review company grows beyond a small local area, the company will have to hire more reviewers. Most likely reviewers will review establishments close to them, that is each reviewer will have a territory he/she covers. Some reviewers will be harsher than others, so restaurants in certain areas will be ranked higher than those in others. Areas will higher rankings will grow faster (because the folks paying like higher reviews).

5\. If reviewers double as salesmen, the ones who review more harshly will make fewer sales, smaller commissions, and are thus less likely to stay with the company (either from quitting or from being fired).

6\. When the company's clients (i.e., the restaurants) in city A notice they overall get lower marks than those in nearby city B, they'll complain and demand to be reviewed by the same person who reviewed city B.

In short, the incentives for this company would be towards high reviews, not accurate reviews.</comment></comment>


Housefed.com : Re: I Quit My Job to Learn How to Code  - <AUTHOR> http://www.proudn00b.com/post/3314388444/how-housefed-com-will-get-into-launch

<comment><USER2> Considering Jason's recent tweet of a last minute entry, my bet is that he got in.

Good job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet...but I'll let everyone know if I do :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> love it</comment>


The Best Approach to Software Development - <AUTHOR> http://java.dzone.com/articles/best-approach-software

<comment><AUTHOR> One sentence stands out: Context matters. I agree, take the approach that best fits the business or project.</comment>


Riding in Cars with Jacques Lacan - <AUTHOR> https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/08/21/riding-in-cars-with-jacques-lacan/ <comment><USER2> Lacan is very interesting.

I was suspicious about Freud since being a teenager and was told by two long- term psychiatrists I've had that psychoanalysis is not-even-wrong-bullshit, which it is -- but nevertheless, Lacan is just so interesting.

I heartily recommend Malcolm Bowie's biography titled "Lacan". Bowie engages with Lacan work rather than life-of-lacan trivia and comes across both very skeptical but very impressed of its scope and grandeur too.

I recently wrote this about Lacan: [https://asemichorizon.wordpress.com/2019/08/18/jacquess- prom...](https://asemichorizon.wordpress.com/2019/08/18/jacquess-promise/)

<comment><USER3> This is hilarious. You're accusing Freud of being bullshit compared to Lacan?

Lacan is practically the king of bullshit-- a textbook example. No one can muster a non-bullshit explanation of what exactly the fuck Lacan is talking about (I'm looking at you, Zizek, bless your heart).

In my experience, most people who are "suspicious" of Freudian psychoanalysis don't understand how psychoanalysis began and evolved over time, and they don't understand that some of it's stranger jargon refers in fact to very straightforward concepts. It's true that Freudian analysts have overreached and been wrong in various ways, but you're incorrect and you're throwing the baby out with the bath water if you think that somehow invalidates all of the revolutionary and important work that Sigmund/Anna did.

Also see [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261567941_The_Dark_...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261567941_The_Dark_Side_of_the_Loon_Explaining_the_Temptations_of_Obscurantism)

<comment><USER2> I don't think neither can be taken at face value as psychological theories. Then, stricto sensu scientific psychology is undergoing an awesome crisis of credibility with all the p-hacking and stuff.

I think Lacanian theory showcases a notion of "theory" that is worth being familiarized with. Ordinarily "theory" in humanities/philosophy etc. is equated with "critical theory"; but Lacan's bogus theory of psychology and Althusser's bogus theory of economics share this sense of "theory".

I think there are many shades to "bullshit". From a scientific, objective point of view, all of this is bullshit -- I'm a STEM nerd by day and I _have_ that point of view. _From that point of view_ I'd have to see extraordinary evidence towards methods like Anna's or Melanie Klein's (or Kohut, or, or) making any sense at all. That's a sense in which I reject Freud. The sense in which I accept Lacan is something very different.

<comment><USER3> Respectfully, your description of Lacan's "theory" not being _that kind of theory_ or whatever is exactly the kind of bullshit at issue; no one can even articulate what _kind_ of theory it is, let alone what the theory itself is. You are asserting, precisely in the obscurantist way described in the paper I linked to, that his work is immune to critical attack.

<comment><USER2> Lacanian psychoanalysis is a dead horse that's pointless to "attack". If you want soft gooey targets for sokal-ish "critical attack", please take down Piketty or Judith Butler.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Google is to privacy... what the Taliban are to women's rights..." - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2009/04/gagging-on-google/#more-1468 <comment><USER2> Good grief. What a terrible, misplaced, unilluminating, demagogic analogy

Here's the deal: Companies don't define your legal rights; governments define your legal rights. Whether you like what Google do or not, they are a lawful company working within a country's legal framework. If people do not like it, their avenue is to elect representatives who will legislate a different more restrictive framework. This is what happened in the 70s with the environmental movement; you don't expect Exxon not to pollute; you bring in laws that make pollution illegal and set up the EPA to police them.

The problem with the Taliban is that it _is_ the bloody government (or the effective government). A woman in a Taliban area has no legal recourse because the Taliban is the law.

If you don't like it, don't blame google; blame your lawmakers.</comment>